


Admission

by orchidbreezefc



Category: King Falls AM (Podcast)
Genre: F/F
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-22
Updated: 2019-03-22
Packaged: 2019-11-27 13:42:32
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 651
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18195347
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/orchidbreezefc/pseuds/orchidbreezefc
Summary: For the Tumblr prompt: "Your eyes are red... were you crying?"





	Admission

Lily hates Sheriff Beanpole. It’s not the most justified hatred she’s ever harbored for a person, because it’s not really for anything that is his own fault. You know, besides the patronizing sense of pity and obnoxious folksiness. If she were a better, less petty person, or even the same terrible petty person but in better circumstances, she would kick her own ass into being fair and giving him an honest chance.

But she’s not that person, not right now, and she seethes every time she has to interact with him. He saw her at her worst and had only a toothless patience with her. Hell, she’d prefer Stevens to _that_ , because at least Stevens would call her on her shit and stage a–well, an intervention, to be a bit on the nose about it.

Eventually Krieghauser gets the hint that she would rather ruin her podcasting voice gargling nails than deal with him a minute longer, so he delegates his deputy to deal with her. The deputy seems like the kind of cop who was actually trained in dealing with people, or maybe that was her past job, who knows, but not in that patronizing time-to-deal-with-a-subhuman-perp kind of way. She introduces herself as Katie Lynch, and sits with Lily.

“You don’t listen to that fucking show, do you?” is the first thing Lily says to her. “I can’t talk to you if you’re already in on the King Falls AM version of Lily Wright, as told by Sammy Stevens.”

“I don’t make a habit of staying up until four in the morning listening to a couple of gentlemen bicker on the air, ma’am,” Katie says calmly. Lily likes her immediately. “No matter how fond the sheriff is of them. I’d rather have the sleep.”

“Good. That’s good.” Lily takes a deep breath. “Keep it that way. Nothing worth hearing, most of the time.”

Katie nods and falls silent as Lily collects herself. It’s a nice reprieve from the sheriff treating her like a rabid raccoon--garbage bear, whatever. “Your eyes are red,” she says eventually. “Were you crying?”

Lily looks at her warily. “What? Why would--I mean--yeah, I guess you can just fucking see it, huh? Yeah, I was crying.” There’s a challenge in her voice she’s not sure she herself put there, but it's there all the same.

Katie considers Lily, her eyes calculating and intelligent, not like she thinks Lily’s crazy or unstable or something so terribly sad. “You just don’t seem the type, is all. I mean, I’ve heard of you, from the sheriff and just around, that you’re all wit and spitfire. Seems like it’d be something pretty rough to make you cry.”

“I’ll take that as a compliment,” Lily says with all the dignity she can manage with loose tear-snot still in her voice. Then she sighs and wipes her face. “It’s no big secret--never was for me, but now precious little Sammy Stevens has admitted to it too so it’s just out there for everybody. My brother. Jack. He’s been dead for five years, last month.”

If Katie has heard the story from the radio or from anyone who heard it from the radio, she doesn’t let on. She doesn’t talk about the goddamn void or that strange shit happens in this town so maybe he’s less dead than she thinks. She just says, “I’m sorry to hear that, ma’am,” and touches Lily’s arm briefly before taking her hand back and keeping it to herself. It’s comforting. Lily doesn’t know anyone else right now who could do that to her and make it comforting.

“Yeah, well. Thanks.” Lily tries a smile, and she’s pretty sure it doesn’t succeed. But Katie smiles back like she got the message, just a little curve of the lips, and it’s the first thing that Lily has seen and actually believed in a long time.


End file.
